Digital content distribution

ABSTRACT

A manifest is created that represents a created work in electronic form. The manifest may reference multiple digital resources that together make up the good, as well as related resources not originally a part of the good. For example, an electronic version of a music album may include image files for the cover art, audio files for the songs, and text files for the lyrics. The manifest may include structured meta-data to facilitate finding, obtaining, exchanging the digital content. The manifest and referenced content may have associated meta-data describing, for example, manifest contents or distribution rules. A receiver of the manifest may apply global and/or user rules or policies to meta-data to determine what portions of the manifest, if any, comply thereto, and to edit or delete the manifest accordingly.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The invention generally relates to distribution of digitalcontent, and more particularly to creating, a manifest having structure,meta-data describing digital content, and references to digitalresources, where the manifest facilitates finding, obtaining,organizing, collecting, and sharing the digital content.

BACKGROUND

[0002] Computing devices, such as a personal computer, typically employa folder/document metaphor for storing and organizing content. Whilesuch a metaphor is well suited to an office environment, where contentis typically in the form of documents, it is not effective when appliedto the use and management of arbitrary digital content. For example, adigital photo album may be defined to correspond to a physical photoalbum. Thus, certain photos and/or textures may be identified ascorresponding to front and back covers for the photo album, and otherphotos identified as being internal to the album. All content within thealbum would be stored in a folder or hierarchy of folders.Unfortunately, such a hierarchy lacks cohesion or inherent structurefound in a physical photo album. Thus, while a real photo album can beeasily organized, shared, etc., there is no standard method for doing sowith the hierarchy for the digital photo album.

[0003] One solution has been to apply an encapsulating structure (e.g.zip or tar file) to the hierarchy and thus create an archive containingall of the digital content. This archive can then be exchanged, sold,etc. A significant drawback to such an archive is that it is monolithic,e.g., it contains all data within the album. This reduces thetransferability of the album, and restricts selective transfer of onlysome album contents. In addition, an archive generally lacks datadescribing the context and contents of the photo album (e.g.,meta-data), thus making it difficult to organize and search/find digitalcontent, and to avoid having duplicative digital content. For example,once the archive it received, it needs to be re-created in a folderstructure corresponding to the original hierarchy structure, or riskinternal references to files being lost. This prevents or restrictsmoving, organizing, and re-organizing digital content.

[0004] In addition, assuming the user can maintain the proper structureof the content, also lacking to such an archive is an easy, robust, andwidely-supported method for searching digital content. For example, formusic data, without excessive redundancy, folder organization techniquescannot help if you want to locate a song played based on multiplecriteria, such as mood and music type, since music would generally fallinto multiple categories and thus require entry in multiple folders.

[0005] Similarly, one cannot select a video starring a certain actor andstart viewing at a particular scene, hum a bar of a tune and have thesystem find it for you, or find all photos taken at an event last year.These tasks cannot be performed because mere hierarchical storage ofdigital content lacks associative or context data, such as captions,dates, places, copyrights, artist, author, genre, etc. to allowidentification of digital content based on such search criteria.

[0006] Assuming the digital content can be located, exchanging thedigital content is difficult due to a lack of open and flexible standardto do so. Existing digital content packaging schemes are proprietary andtailored to specific content types, such as for electronic books ormusic. Currently there is no technology for uniformly packaging, inelectronic form, a wide variety of digital content in a way thatqualifies the content as what the entertainment industry calls a“title.”

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0007] The features and advantages of the present invention will becomeapparent from the following detailed description of the presentinvention in which:

[0008]FIG. 1 illustrates a generalized network environment according toone embodiment of the invention.

[0009]FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a manifest for representingdigital content corresponding to a music album.

[0010]FIG. 3 illustrates, according to one embodiment of the invention,portions of an XML skeleton for implementing the FIG. 2 manifest.

[0011]FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating, according to one embodiment ofthe invention, creating digital content for use by a receiver.

[0012]FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating, according to one embodiment ofthe invention, receiving a manifest or manifests from an agent, such asin response to a search query.

[0013]FIG. 6 illustrates a suitable computing environment in whichcertain aspects of the invention may be implemented.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0014] To address limitations in management and distribution of digitalcontent, a system may be used for uniform electronic packaging ofdigital content independent of content type, along with automateddistribution of digital content to desired recipients. The phrase“digital content” refers to digital representations of created works,such as multimedia items including photo albums, music albums, novels,magazines, and the like, as well as entirely new forms of content thatmay emerge in the electronic realm. The phrase “electronic package”means an instance of digital content that exists in some computeraccessible medium, such as on a wire, in computer memory, on a storagedevice, etc.

[0015] The illustrated embodiments of the invention may represent, orpackage, abstract created works in a concrete electronic digital form,as well as provide an electronic analog to traditional physical goods.For example, a CD-ROM or vinyl album is simply a physical representationof the abstract concept “music album”; a book is simply a physicalrepresentation of the abstract concept “novel.” But, it will beappreciated that these exemplary album and novel concepts have beenlargely defined with respect to the limitations of their physicalrepresentations. And, these abstract forms can be faithfully representedin an electronic form. However, it should be appreciated that since anon-physical electronic realm lacks limitations of physical objects, andtherefore abstract forms of created works can morph and evolve in waysunpredictable, and perhaps not physically possible.

[0016] Thus, an electronic package may be structured to correspond to,or mimic, a physical good. For example, an electronic packagecorresponding to a music compact disc (CD) can be defined as havingpackaging, cover illustrations, organization, etc., corresponding to aphysical CD. However, unlike the physical good, in an electronic realm,the electronic package may also include meta-data describing the parts,and/or context of the packaged digital content, rules controllingdistribution of the digital content, as well as references to contentrelated to but not part of the physical good.

[0017] In one embodiment, an electronic package of digital content isrepresented by a “manifest” (see FIG. 2) that appears as a single unit,or item, to a user/receiver of the manifest. The manifest comprises“component” definitions corresponding to components of the digitalcontent, each component definition specifying a reference to a digitalresource.

[0018]FIG. 1 illustrates a general computing environment according toone embodiment of the invention. As illustrated, a manifest for anelectronic package is created or transmitted by an originator 100-104,and received by a receiver 106, 108. It will be appreciated that theterms “receiver” and “originator” are arbitrary, in that one may alsoperform the operations of the other. Agents 110, 112 facilitate transferof manifests from originators to receivers. Originators, receivers, andagents are in communication with each other over a network 114 such asan intranet, the Internet, or other network. There may be othernetworks, not illustrated, providing alternate or direct connectionsbetween the agents, originators, and/or receivers.

[0019] Agents include, for example, search engines used by a receiver tolocate digital content of interest to the receiver, order processingsystems for responding to and fulfilling purchase requests, and systemsthat customize content en route for specific locales. Agents canincorporate arbitrary “intelligence” that facilitate buying, selling,trading, bartering, lending, etc. of digital content. In one embodiment,originators and receivers may also perform the functions of an agent.

[0020] Thus, receiver 1 106 may contact Agent 1 110, and indicateinterest in obtaining a certain classical music CD as digital content.If Agent 2 cannot directly provide the requested digital content, Agent1 contacts Agent 2 112 over the network 114, and request the desireddigital content. Assuming Agent 2 can fulfill the request, Agent 2 sendsAgent 1 a manifest corresponding to the requested digital content.

[0021] It will be appreciated that typical content distributionservices, such as Universal Music Group's bluematter and BMG (bothonline music providers), and Flycode (a peer-to-peer short filmdistribution network), already allow one to obtain digital content overa network. (Please note that all marks herein are the property of theirrespective owners.) However, a significant limitation of such servicesis that received content is a monolithic encapsulation, it contains allparts of the digital content whether one wishes to receive it or not.Thus, for a music album, the receiver would receive all data for allsongs within the album, which may potentially include multiple encodingsof each song, etc. This contrasts distribution by way of a manifest,which may only contain references to digital resources, allowing advancedetermination of which parts, if any, of the content to obtain beforeexpending resources to receive it.

[0022] Another limitation of prior art techniques is that the content isrigidly structured. For example, bluematter and BMG can provide a“song,” or an “album,” but these are content forms that cannot be easilyextended to include other types of content, such as video clips,discount coupons, etc. Such content is also inflexible in the types ofmetadata that can be included. For example, fixed file formats (e.g.,MP3, WMA, etc.) typically used in such services have specific notions ofwhat constitutes appropriate metadata for a music album or an individualsong. This results in limitations in what data may be represented, andhow, thus limiting general applicability of the file format. Suchsystems are tightly bound with specific encoding formats, and aredifficult to upgrade when technological improvements are made.

[0023]FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a manifest 200 forrepresenting digital content corresponding to an abstract music album.It will be appreciated, however, that a manifest may also be used toelectronically represent particular physical implementations of theabstract idea, e.g., to represent compact discs, vinyl albums, etc. Itis assumed the manifest is created with an appropriate manifestgeneration/authoring tool. The manifest binds together various types ofresources in their original authored formats. In one embodiment, themanifest only references data that can be created with well known orstandard data authoring tools, such as MP3 generators, video editingsoftware, etc.

[0024] As illustrated, the manifest 200 itself corresponds to a top, orouter, level. Within the illustrated manifest are six item declarationscorresponding to two songs 202, 216, two videos 230, 236, cover artgraphics 242 and meta-data 244. The meta-data 244 may containdistribution rules, requirements, or policies (hereafter “rules orpolicies”) regarding handling of the manifest, or the digital contentdescribed by the manifest.

[0025] Items (and sub-items) can have sub-items. For example, asillustrated, song 1 202 contains references 204, 206 to differentencodings of song 1, meta-data 208 describing song 1, a reference 210 tolyrics for song 1, a reference 212 to a musical instrument digitalinterface (MIDI) encoding of song 1. The references 204, 206 to thedifferent encodings allow providing different encodings of a song, suchas a high bit rate version and a low bit rate version, allowing areceiver 106, 108 (FIG. 1) to elect a version based on certain criteria.For example, a receiver may elect a version based on communication datarates available to the receiver. The meta-data 208 for song 1 202 mayinclude song data such as playing time, composer, recording date,copyright information, and the like.

[0026] The meta-data for song 1 202 may also contain pricing informationfor each song encoding, e.g., the high bit rate encoding 206 for song 1may cost more than the low bit rate 204 encoding. The meta-data may alsoinclude other data such as content ratings, intended audience ratings,e.g., an indicator the song is intended for kids, teenagers, adults,etc., song genre, geographic distribution rules, e.g., differentgeographic regions receive different song versions, parental controls,etc. The manifest primarily contains references to digital resources,rather than directly embedding the resources. The meta-data may be usedto determine how to handle digital resources referenced by the manifest(see FIG. 5). The meta-data can also be inspected to prevent duplicativeretrieval of digital resources already be present in a cache or localstorage, e.g., saved to disk or a collection. Duplicative retrievalsunnecessarily burden networks and increase purchase costs and deliverytimes.

[0027] The illustrated manifest 200 also includes videos sections 230,236 having references 232, 238 to video clips of concerts, music videos,or other video data related to the physical good described by themanifest. As with the songs, 202, 216, the video sections 230, 236 mayhave associated meta-data 234, 240, such as title, running time, contentratings, and other such data as discussed above for song data. It willbe appreciated that video data is not ordinarily part of a music CDdistribution. However, since the manifest contains references to digitalresources, rather than the resources themselves, it is easy to extendthe manifest to include varied data typically associated with the musicCD, even though such an inclusion would be impractical or costineffective to distribute along with the physical CD, or obtain alongwith a traditional monolithic download.

[0028] As illustrated, the manifest may also include a reference 242 toa graphics file, such as for a graphics encoding of the cover art forthe music CD. Such graphics data facilitates presenting, by way of auser interface, a visual representation, such a picture of the cover ofan album, or other representative view, of the created work beingrepresented by the manifest.

[0029] It is assumed that an appropriate user interface, such as atext-based or graphical-based interface is used to identify digitalresources to include in the manifest, and to create the manifestaccordingly. In one embodiment, the same user interface is used toprocess received manifests. In one embodiment, the graphical userinterface is based on an Internet browser. In one embodiment, themanifest includes security provisions to detect unauthorized tamperingwith the manifest. In one embodiment, the manifest is cryptographicallysigned. In another embodiment, some or all of the manifest is encryptedwith a private and/or known public cryptographic systems. See, e.g.,Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C byBruce Schneier.

[0030]FIG. 3 illustrates, according to one embodiment of the invention,portions of an XML skeleton 300 for implementing the FIG. 2 manifest200. The extensible Markup Language (XML) is used due to its widespreadindustry support and structures for organizing data. XML allows creationof custom tags, which enables defining, validating, and interpretingtransmitted manifests. It will be appreciated, however, that otherlanguages, such as tag based languages, or scripting languages, may alsobe used. In addition, in one embodiment, a binary data standard (e.g.,cross-platform readable) may be used to encode a manifest. In general,any data format that allows data sets to be named, and hierarchicallystructured, can be used.

[0031] A first tag 302 indicates the beginning of a music packagedefinition, or container, for the digital content defined by themanifest. The package has multiple defined items. A first item 304contains information about the “digital item” (in this case, anelectronic version of a music album) described by the manifest, andconfiguration options regarding handling the contents of the package,e.g., how to prompt a receiver regarding processing songs and otherdigital content referenced by the manifest.

[0032] Each defined item, and the manifest itself, may have arbitrarymeta-data to allow associating real-world context with an item.Meta-data is introduced with descriptor tags 320, 322 having definitions324. A descriptor tag NAME attribute indicates the metadata attributebeing defined, and the VALUE attribute supplies an appropriate value.The first item 304 includes a choice tag 306 identified with an ID 308to allow a receiver of the manifest to choose how to receive songsreferenced by the manifest. A selection tag 310, e.g., “pick songs,”provides an option for selecting songs individually. It will beappreciated that other selection options, or no options, may beprovided.

[0033] A subsequent choice tag 312 indicates available songs, e.g.,SONG1, SONG2, from which to choose. Note that the choice tag 312 has acondition tag 314 requiring the above “pick songs” selection tag 310.This condition must be satisfied before this choice 312 is acted upon,and it operates in the context of the previous choice tag 306. In suchfashion, manifests may be structured to provide choices based onprevious selections. Subsequent selection tags 316 define songs that maybe individually selected.

[0034] A following tag 318 indicates a start of a manifest section forselecting a desired bit rate desired for selected songs. As above withsong selection, bit rate selection options (not illustrated) may beincluded to operate with respect to the method employed for songselection. For example, if an election is made to individually picksongs, then one may be prompted for each song to select a desiredbit-rate.

[0035] Other choice tags may also be defined to control delivery of thedigital content to another party, e.g., to include an address book tofacilitate sale or transfer of digital content to another receiver. Tagsmay also be defined to prompt a receiver to identify a computingplatform receiving the manifest, e.g., desktop computer, portable,hand-held device, personal digital assistant (PDA), as each such devicemay have different format requirements, storage capacities and interfacecapabilities.

[0036] Tags may also be defined to indicate the operating system in useby the receiving device, and to control whether to obtain extra content,such as related videos 230, 236, cover art and related package graphics,lyrics, press reviews, etc. Tags may also be defined to indicate dataformat preferences, e.g., graphics images should be converted (ifnecessary) into Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format images,or videos should be in a particular format.

[0037] Following various choice tags, are descriptor tags 322 that areat the same hierarchical level as the first item 304 definition, e.g., amusic compact disc, and therefore define 324 typical characteristics forthe disc. Exemplary illustrated characteristics include the type ofmusic disc defined by the item 304 (an album), an audience rating, albumtitle, creator, contributor, album publisher, and album rights (e.g.,copyright information). As discussed above, any of these attributes canbe used to control or facilitate organization, content filtering, andre-distribution of digital content.

[0038] This description assumes the receiver is a person using anapplication program or device configured to receive and/or process themanifest, and display choices accordingly. However, note that thereceiver may be another application program or device, such as oneoperating to automatically apply local policies or rules to receivedmanifests, before a manifest is received by a person. In particular,there may be local policies, such as parental controls, and thesepolicies may be used to cause a rewriting of the manifest, e.g., per XMLrewriting rules, so that the manifest excludes references to undesirablecontent.

[0039] It will be appreciated that the exemplary FIG. 3 skeleton may beconstructed with content and features to free a user from tediousdownload processes, and from the need to know or understand file formatsor plug-ins (e.g., application program enhancements designed to processa particular data format) when receiving content from networkoriginators 100-104 (FIG. 1). Through use of agents 110, 112, or directnetwork connections, the user can place an order for digital content,and then continue with other tasks. The order is fulfilled in thebackground, without user intervention. Delivery can be robust such thatif a network connection is broken, a data transfer continuesautomatically when the network connection is reestablished. When contenthas been received, and its manifest accepted, modified or rejectedaccording to user and local-system rules and/or policies, the user canbe notified accordingly.

[0040]FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating, according to one embodiment ofthe invention, creating an electronic package of digital content for useby a receiver. As illustrated, a first operation is to package digitalcontent 400 for distribution to receivers; as discussed above, in oneembodiment, a manifest is used to package the content. A packagingprogram is used to identify content to be packaged and generate acorresponding manifest. Individual digital resources can be identifiedby way of traditional file selection dialogs, or with Object Linking andEmbedding (OLE) type drag and drop operations, or through otherselection techniques.

[0041] When created, the manifest contains references to identifiedresources, and if desired, a virtual structure corresponding to aphysical good, e.g., a music CD. Thus, a receiving program for a musicCD manifest would present a user interface displaying the virtualrepresentation of the physical good. In the CD example, this mightinclude rendering a CD jewel box with appropriate cover art and songlistings as defined within the manifest.

[0042] A created manifest is sent 402 to an agent for distribution,which in turn stores 404 the manifest in a public storage. Note that thestorage need not be publicly accessible, however public access isassumed so that search engines, agents, and other location applicationsare able to mine and/or index stored manifests. It is assumed that theagent stores the manifest in a database. The digital resourcesidentified by the manifest are stored 406 as well. The digital resourcesmay be stored in public or private storage locations depending onintellectual property rights for the digital resources.

[0043] Once the manifest has been created and stored, an agent canreceive 408 a search query, e.g., purchase request, database look-uprequest, etc. The agent searches 410 through the database for manifestscorresponding to the query. Assuming manifests are XML based, it will beappreciated that different query languages may be used depending onmanifest formatting and database technology used to store the manifests.For example, the agent may use XML Query Language (XQL) queries,Stanford University's Lore query language, or other query languages.

[0044] Manifests matching the received 408 query are returned 412 to arequester. This may result in a request to purchase digital contentidentified by a manifest. Towards this end, the agent would confirmpayment for digital content as required by a manifest, and make digitalcontent available to a purchaser. Various known techniques may beemployed to provide purchased digital content in a secure fashion so asto reduce possibility of illicit appropriation of the digital content,e.g., temporary names and locations for the digital resources includedin the content, creation of secure communications channels or tunnelsbetween the agent and purchases, or the like.

[0045]FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating, according to one embodiment ofthe invention, receiving 500 a manifest or manifests from an agent, suchas in response to a search query. It is assumed the manifest is receivedby an application program, operating system extension, or the like,before a user/person is granted access to the manifest or allowed totake action on (e.g., purchase) the digital content referenced by themanifest.

[0046] When the manifest is received, a receiver 106, 108 (FIG. 1)applies 502, 506 rules or policies to the meta-data 208, 222, 234, 240,244 (FIG. 2) to determine how to process the digital content, such aswhether to reject some or all of the manifest. For example, a receivermay have local rules controlling whether to include supplemental contentsuch as the videos 230, 236, (FIG. 2) MIDI encodings 212, 226 (FIG. 2),or other data not traditionally part of an original physical good, e.g.,the music CD. A user preference may be set to cause discarding of anysuch supplemental manifest portions.

[0047] In one embodiment, there may be different rules or policies 506for each user of the receiving device, e.g., the receiving device may bea multiple-user computer, in addition to global rules or policies thatare applied 502 to all users of the computing device. For example,parental controls may be used to globally restrict the type of contentthat any user may receive, or content known to be incompatible with thereceiver may be automatically edited out of a manifest. In oneembodiment, a received manifest is rewritten 504, if necessary, tocomply with the global rules or policies. Note that a remote managementsystem can be used to set or change rules or policies.

[0048] After checking the manifest against global rules or policies,user rules or policies are then applied 506 to the manifest, and themanifest again rewritten 508, if necessary, to comply with the userrules or policies. In one embodiment, the process of “rewriting” amanifest is done in a rigorous manner. The rules controlling therewriting are expressed in declarative form within the manifest itselfwithin <choice> and <selection> tags, and their corresponding<condition> tags. This makes the rewriting process robust, and ensuresthe resulting rewritten manifest is valid. Once a received manifest hascleared both global and user rules or policies, the resultant manifestis executed or interpreted 510 by the receiver. As discussed above withrespect to FIG. 3, such processing may cause a user interface to bedisplayed to allow a user selection among different choices provided bythe manifest for buying or obtaining 512 digital content accordingly.

[0049] In one embodiment, manifests are encoded according to a rulesbased grammar comprising the following exemplary rules:

[0050] (1) container ::=container* item* meta-data

[0051] (2) item ::=(item|component)⁺ choice* meta-data* condition*

[0052] (3) component ::=resource meta-data* anchor* condition*

[0053] (4) meta-data ::=meta-data* (component|statement) condition*

[0054] (5) anchor ::=reference meta-data* condition*

[0055] (6) choice ::=selection⁺ meta-data* condition*

[0056] (7) selection ::=predicate meta-data* condition*

[0057] (8) condition ::=predicate⁺

[0058] Where: a container may be a hierarchical structure allowing itemsto be grouped to form logical packages that may be transported,exchanged, sold, stored, etc. An item is a grouping of sub-items and/orcomponents associated with relevant meta-data about the item. Items maycontain choices for customizing and/or configuring the item, and may beconditioned on predicates asserted by selections defined in the choices.A resource is a collection of data, such as an audio clip, image file,text document, or other data. A component is an association between aresource and all of its relevant meta-data; component meta-data willtypically contain control or structural information about a resource,e.g., bit rate, media type, character set, encryption information, etc.A reference designates a portion of a resource, such as a specificlocation or range within the resource. A “statement” comprises a valueand an associated domain for that value. And, a predicate is anon-substitutable token, and in one embodiment, has a true, false, orundecided value.

[0059]FIG. 6 and the following discussion are intended to provide abrief, general description of a suitable computing environment in whichcertain aspects of the illustrated invention may be implemented.

[0060] An exemplary system for implementing the invention includes acomputing device 600 having system bus 602 for coupling variouscomputing device components. Typically, attached to the bus arenon-programmable and programmable processors 604, a memory 606 (e.g.,RAM, ROM), storage devices 608, a video interface 610, and input/outputinterface ports 612. Storage devices include hard-drives, floppy-disks,optical storage, magnetic cassettes, tapes, flash memory cards, memorysticks, digital video disks, and the like.

[0061] The invention may be described by reference to differenthigh-level program modules and/or low-level hardware contexts. Thoseskilled in the art will realize that program modules can be interchangedwith low-level hardware instructions. Program modules includeprocedures, functions, programs, components, data structures, and thelike, for performing particular tasks or implementing particularabstract data types. Modules may be incorporated into single andmulti-processor computing devices, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs),cellular telephones, and the like. Thus, the storage systems andassociated media can store data and executable instructions for thecomputing device.

[0062] As discussed above with respect to FIG. 1, the computing deviceis expected to operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections to one or more remote computing devices 614, 616 through anetwork interface 618, modem 620, or other communication pathway.Computing devices may be interconnected by way of a network 622 such asan intranet, the Internet, or other network. Modules may be implementedin a single computing device, or processed in a distributed networkenvironment, and stored in both local and remote memory. Thus, forexample, with respect to the illustrated embodiments, assuming computingdevice 600 is a computing device operated by a user searching for musicin a particular genre, then remote devices 614, 616 may respectively befirst and second agents that receive and respond to search issued bycomputing device 600.

[0063] It will be appreciated that remote computing devices 614, 616 maybe configured like computing device 600, and therefore include many orall of the elements discussed for computing device. It should also beappreciated that computing devices 600, 614, 616 may be embodied in asingle device, or separate communicatively-coupled components, and mayinclude or be embodied in routers, bridges, peer devices, web servers,and application programs utilizing network application protocols such asthe HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP),and the like.

[0064] Having described and illustrated the principles of the inventionwith reference to illustrated embodiments, it will be recognized thatthe illustrated embodiments can be modified in arrangement and detailwithout departing from such principles.

[0065] And, even though the foregoing discussion has focused onparticular embodiments, it is understood that other configurations arecontemplated. In particular, even though expressions such as “in oneembodiment,” “in another embodiment,” or the like are used herein, thesephrases are meant to generally reference embodiment possibilities, andare not intended to limit the invention to particular embodimentconfigurations. As used herein, these terms may reference the same ordifferent embodiments, and unless implicitly or expressly indicatedotherwise, embodiments are combinable into other embodiments.Consequently, in view of the wide variety of permutations to theabove-described embodiments, the detailed description is intended to beillustrative only, and should not be taken as limiting the scope of theinvention.

[0066] What is claimed as the invention, therefore, is all suchmodifications as may come in the scope and spirit of the followingclaims and equivalents thereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method to electronically represent a work,comprising: storing in a manifest a first reference to a first digitalresource, and a first metadata describing the first digital resource;storing in the manifest a second reference to a second digital resource,and a second meta-data describing the second digital resource; andstoring in the manifest a structural relationship between said first andsecond digital resources; wherein the manifest comprises structurecorresponding to the work.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the work isa digital representation of a physical good, and the manifest comprisesstructure corresponding to the physical good.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising: storing within the manifest selected ones of:purchasing data for the work, purchasing data for said digitalresources, intended audience ratings for said digital resources, contentratings for said digital resources, and processing rules describing howa machine is to process the manifest.
 4. A method for defining amanifest for a specific digital representation of a work, comprising:storing in the manifest a first reference to a first digital resource;storing in the manifest a first meta-data describing selected ones ofthe manifest and the first digital resource; and making the firstmanifest available for receiving by a receiver; and associating thefirst reference and the first meta-data so that the manifest comprisesstructure corresponding to a physical good.
 5. The method of claim 3,wherein said digital resource includes selected ones of audio data,video data, audiovisual data, image data, binary data, world wide webdocuments, virtual reality data, textual data, holographic data, andprogramming language programs.
 6. The method of claim 4, wherein thefirst meta-data comprises an intended-audience attribute.
 7. The methodof claim 4, further comprising: storing purchasing data for the firstdigital resource in the manifest to facilitate a purchase decision by areceiver of the manifest.
 8. The method of claim 6, further comprising:storing in the manifest a second reference to a second digital resource,said first and second digital resource encoding an original resourcewith differing encoding quality; and setting prices in the purchasingdata for said first and second resources based at least in part on saidencoding quality.
 9. The method of claim 4, further comprising: storingin the manifest a second reference to a second digital resource relatedto but not included in the physical good.
 10. The method of claim 9,further comprising: storing in the manifest a second reference to asecond digital resource, said first and second digital resource encodingan original resource with differing encoding quality; and setting pricesin the purchasing data for said first and second resources based atleast in part on said encoding quality.
 11. The method of claim 4,further comprising: storing content ratings information within themanifest so that the receiver can filter content according to saidcontent ratings.
 12. The method of claim 4, further comprising: storingdigital rights management information within the manifest.
 13. Themethod of claim 4, further comprising: storing authenticationinformation within the manifest.
 14. The method of claim 4, furthercomprising: storing in the manifest a second reference to a seconddigital resource, said first and second digital resources encoding anoriginal resource with differing encoding quality.
 15. The method ofclaim 4, further comprising: encoding the manifest with a hierarchicaltag based markup language; and structuring the manifest with respect toa rules-based grammar.
 16. A method for processing a collection ofdigital content received by a receiver having at least one policyaffecting receipt of collections, comprising: receiving a manifest for awork comprising a description of data stored by the collection, areference to a first digital resource, and meta-data describing thefirst digital content, wherein the manifest comprises a relationshipbetween the reference and said meta-data so that the manifest includesstructure corresponding to the work; testing compliance of thedescription with the policy; determining if the manifest can be editedto comply with the policy; and if not, disposing of the manifest. 17.The method of claim 16, further comprising: providing a search query forlocating digital content to a search agent; and receiving the manifestin response to the search query.
 18. The method of claim 16, furthercomprising: the manifest further comprising a second reference to seconddigital content, second meta-data describing the second digital content,and purchasing data for said first and second digital content; decidingto obtain the collection; determining the first digital content was notpreviously obtained; determining the second digital content has beenpreviously been obtained; and purchasing only the first digital contentin accord with said purchasing data.
 19. The method of claim 16, furthercomprising: the manifest further comprising a second reference to seconddigital content, second meta-data describing the second digital content;deciding to obtain the first collection; determining the second digitalcontent has been previously been obtained, said determining being basedon the second digital content already being present in a selected oneof: a cache, another collection, or a local storage device; andobtaining only the first digital content.
 20. A digital contentmanagement system, comprising: a storage for storing digital contentcollections, wherein a collection comprises a link reference to digitalcontent, and meta-data describing selected ones of said digital contentand the collection; a communication agent communicatively coupled to thestorage; a receiver communicatively coupled to the communication agent,said receiver configured to inspect said meta-data and process thecollection accordingly; and a transmitter communicatively coupled to thecommunication agent, said transmitter configured to inspect thereference to digital content to confirm retrievability of the digitalcontent, and to make the collection available to other digital contentmanagement systems.
 21. The system of claim 20, further comprising: acreation tool for creating the collection; and a user interfacecommunicatively coupled to the creation tool, said user interface havinga first interface tool to facilitate selection of the digital content,and a second interface tool to facilitate entering said meta-data. 22.The system of claim 21, further comprising: a search agent configured toreceive a search criteria and search for digital content collectionssatisfying said search criteria; and a commerce agent comprising apurchasing tool configured to determine purchasing requirements forreceived digital content collections, and a payment tool configured topurchase digital content in accord with said purchasing requirements.23. The system of claim 20, wherein digital content collections areencoded with a hierarchical tag based markup language.
 24. The system ofclaim 20, further comprising: a policy checker configured to checkdigital content collections received by the communication agent againsta policy of the receiver; a digital content collection editor,communicatively coupled to the policy checker, said editor configured tochange digital content collections to comply with the policy; and adigital content collection rejecter, communicatively coupled to saideditor, said rejecter configured to reject received digital contentcollections.
 25. The system of claim 24, wherein said digital contentcollection rejecter is configured to reject digital content collectionsthat cannot be edited to comply with the policy.
 26. The system of claim20, further comprising: a search agent configured to locate digitalcontent satisfying a search criteria, said locating including searchingthe storage for satisfying digital content.
 27. The system of claim 26,wherein the storage is communicatively coupled to the system through anetwork connection.
 28. A method for collecting and managing digitalcontent, comprising: determining a first digital resource to include ina collection; storing a first reference to the first resource in thecollection; determining a first meta-data of the first resource; storingsaid associated first meta-data in the collection; storing thecollection in a storage accessible by a receiver; inspecting, by thereceiver, of the first meta-data description; and determining, based atleast on said inspecting, whether to obtain the first resource accordingto the first reference.
 29. The method of claim 28, further comprising:associating security data with the collection to facilitate detectingalterations to the collection.
 30. The method of claim 28, furthercomprising: determining compliance of the collection with a receiverpolicy; editing the collection to conform the collection to the receiverpolicy; and revising, by the receiver, said associated security inaccordance with said editing.
 31. The method of claim 30, wherein saidrevising comprises the receiver cryptographically signing some or all ofthe collection to facilitate identifying that said receiver performedsaid revising.
 32. The method of claim 28, further comprising: logicallystructuring the collection to correspond to a physical good.
 33. A salesmethod utilizing a collection description describing a sellercollection, comprising: assigning a category to the collectiondescription to facilitate management of the seller collection accordingto the category; determining a first resource to be sold with the sellercollection; determining a first meta-data describing the first resource;storing the first meta-data in the collection description; storing atleast one reference to the first resource in the collection description,where plural references may be used to provide the first resource to thebuyer at different quality levels; associating pricing data with eachreference to the first resource; and storing said pricing data in thecollection description.
 34. The method of claim 33, further comprising:providing the collection description to a buyer agent; identifying buyeraccess of the resource; and charging the buyer according to pricing dataassociated with the resource.
 35. The method of claim 34, wherein thebuyer agent is the buyer.
 36. A rules-based method for declaring adecision tree for a manifest for a work, comprising: storing a firstchoice within the manifest; associating first meta-data with the firstchoice; association a first selection with the first choice; wherein aportion of the manifest is dependent on the first selection.
 37. Themethod of claim 36, further comprising: storing a second selectionwithin the manifest; wherein said dependency for the portion of themanifest is predicated on said first and second selections.
 38. Themethod of claim 36, further comprising: associating second meta-datawith the selection.
 39. The method of claim 36, wherein the firstselection is either inclusive or exclusive.
 40. An article comprising amachine accessible medium having instruction encoded thereon forcollecting and managing digital content, said instructions, which whenexecuted by a machine, are capable of directing the machine to performthe operations of claim
 1. 41. The article of claim 40, saidinstructions including further instructions capable of directing themachine to perform the operations of claim
 2. 42. An article comprisinga machine accessible medium having instructions encoded thereon fordefining a manifest for digital content, said instructions, which whenexecuted by a machine, are capable of directing the machine to performthe operations of claim
 4. 43. The article of claim 41, saidinstructions including further instructions capable of directing themachine to perform the operations of claim
 7. 44. The article of claim43, said instructions including further instructions capable ofdirecting the machine to perform the operations of claim
 8. 45. Anarticle comprising a machine accessible medium having instructionsencoded thereon for processing a collection of digital content receivedby a receiver having at least one policy affecting receipt ofcollections, said instructions, which when executed by a machine, arecapable of directing the machine to perform the operations of claim 16.46. The article of claim 45, said instructions including furtherinstructions capable of directing the machine to perform the operationsof claim
 17. 47. The article of claim 45, said instructions includingfurther instructions capable of directing the machine to perform theoperations of claim
 18. 48. The article of claim 45, said instructionsincluding further instructions capable of directing the machine toperform the operations of claim
 19. 49. An article comprising a machineaccessible medium having instruction encoded thereon for collecting andmanaging digital content, said instructions, which when executed by amachine, are capable of directing the machine to perform the operationsof claim
 28. 50. The article of claim 45, said instructions includingfurther instructions capable of directing the machine to perform theoperations of claim
 29. 51. An article comprising a machine accessiblemedium having instruction encoded thereon for collecting and managingdigital content, said instructions, which when executed by a machine,are capable of directing the machine to perform the operations of claim36.
 52. The article of claim 51, said instructions including furtherinstructions capable of directing the machine to perform the operationsof claim 37